Use Your Brain to Get a Hot Summer Body

With Memorial Day--the official kick-off of swim suit season--fast-approaching, most women are fixated on their bodies, but what they really should be obsessing about are their brains.

I recently read the New York Times bestseller Change Your Brain, Change Your Body, by Daniel G. Amen, MD, and it has made me infinitely more mindful of behaviors that impact my body--and, most importantly, how much I control I have over said behaviors. Dr. Amen's main message is that a better body starts with a better brain, and that being overweight isn't just an eating disorder it's a thinking disorder.

“Your brain is the command and control center of your body,” he told me in a recent interview. “It is your brain that pushes you away from the table telling you that you’ve had enough, or it is your brain that gives you permission to have that third bowl of Rocky Road ice cream so you feel like a blob.”

Yup, been there.

In sessions with his patients, Dr. Amen introduces them to nine “species” of ANTs, which are negative thoughts (Get it? A Negative Thought) that come into your head, ruin your day, and prevent you from losing weight. To gain control of those thoughts you have to develop an ANTeater to gobble them up. Here are five of his most-effective ANTeaters. Use them to change your thinking–and your body.

ANT SPECIES: ALL OR NOTHING

ANT: I ate a cookie and ruined my diet. I may as well finish off the whole bag of cookies and give up on my diet.

ANTeater: I enjoyed the cookie and will eat fewer calories at dinner to make up for it.